Goodnight Darkness
by Amnell
Summary: What do you say to someone you have hated, and loved, at the end of it all? Do you revisit where it all went wrong? Do you try and make amends?


The two figures lay side by side on the field. The grass around them, once tall and golden, was now trampled by the heavy feet of war, and soaked with the crimson stain of blood. Two silver phials lay in each figure's hand. Both were empty.

"Why did you never tell me?" She asked. Her words were anger, but underneath, the depth of her pain and betrayal shone through. .

His heart ached as he watched her put up her defenses. Once he would have been able to stop their construction. But not anymore.

"Believe me, I wanted to. More than you could ever know. But it wasn't the right time, and Gaius said it wasn't safe, and, well, you were the King's Ward!"

The sting of that last sentence was like a knife thrust into her clenched stomach.

"And what the hell does that have to do with anything! I told _you _about _my_ powers, even though you were Arthur's manservant. How could I have known that you wouldn't have turned me in?" Her vivid green eyes cut into him like probing daggers.

"I trusted you."

"Morgana," He began, letting the taste of the long forbidden name slide over his lips. "I was scared. I understand you were too. But I've never been brave like you. Nor strong like you. I thought..." He took a deep breath to calm his racing heart.

"I thought it would change things... between _us._ I had magic. Though I knew by then that I shouldn't fear my powers, that knowledge didn't stopped me from feeling like a monster sometimes."

Morgana continued to glare at him. But the glare was softened with some other emotion. A calmer one. Not exactly longing, but...

"Did you never think of what _I_ wanted! Those were my emotions you and Gaius played with, as if I were simply some piece in your game of destiny."

Her words hung in the smoky air for what felt like an eternity.

"I wanted to tell you, you know."

Morgana rolled her eyes. "You have said that so many times. It's changed anything."

"I know. But you deserve to know that, for what it's worth, I almost did. Several times."

Morgana wanted to shout at him, about all the times they had fought one another, all the times she had hated him, loathed the sound of his very name. But her mouth tasted sour, and her head pounded like the beat of a thousand war drums.

"You poisoned me."

Merlin closed his eyes in shame. He knew this last conversation would trace back to this moment of reckoning sooner or later.

"That was the hardest thing I have ever done."

Morgana laughed. "What worth does the word of Merlin, traitor to Avalon and Emrys, deserter of his own people, hold?"

"Morgana, I have done many terrible things in my life. But the worst of which will always be having listened to Kilgharrah. I know now that destiny is not set in stone. I could have told you. Should have told you. I could have saved you. I could have..." His voice trailed off. The enormous weight of so many years of guilt lay heavy on him.

"I loved you once." Morgana whispered.

Merlin's heart kept a steady beat. "I know."

"You loved me back." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes. But I don't see how that will change anything." Merlin's breath was labored now,. His blood ran thickly in his veins, and his vision was beginning to dim. The poison's effects were growing stronger.

"Love redeems people." Morgana started to laugh, but it quickly turned into racked coughing. Her poison appeared to be doing it's work as well.

Merlin smiled wanly. "Redemption. Something both of us are in sore need of."

"I hated you for so long. But I loved you for a long time as well. I can't escape you Merlin. You were my destiny. And my doom."

Now it was Merlin's turn to laugh. But like his partner, it soon turned into rough hacking.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just, someone told me a similar line long ago. You were the darkness to my light. The hatred to my love."

"How fitting," She said, a half smile gracing her haggardly angular heavy eyelids closed over her fading green eyes.

"Goodnight Light."

"Goodnight Darkness." Merlin murmured, as his mind dimmed, and faded into a world of mist.


End file.
